Epilogue

Our team has successfully navigated the airports, waiting rooms, and customs officials (Katie may want to say something about her confiscated soil samples). Katie, Elaina, Jorge, and Melodie are safe and sound in College Place, and Brian and Curt arrived early this morning in Louisville, KY for an EWB conference.

It’s always difficult to leave a warm and accepting environment like Luis Garcia. The people work their way into your heart through the simple means of being who they are. We feel more strongly connected with our Honduran counterpart Chris Padilla, as well as the local government officials and the people of Luis Garcia.

EWB-WWU identified four engineering challenges still needing attention at the elementary school:

Design and construct a retaining wall and diversion channel to keep gray/black water from flowing across the school grounds. This will also prevent the present school foundation from being undermined by erosion.

Design and construct two additional latrines.

Design and build a security wall around the school property.

Plant trees along the western perimeter of the school grounds to preserve the river bank on that side of the property.

We feel our strengths at WWU-EWB are best utilized by addressing the first challenge. Jorge plans to take this design on as his senior project under the guidance of Melodie Selby. The local municipal government has agreed to work with us by promising to address the second and third challenges. Finally, the community of Luis Garcia will show their commitment to this project by implementing the last challenge. This agreement will be formalized in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to be signed by all parties in the near future.

We have proven through previous project work that our partnership with the local municipality officials, Chris Padilla, and the community of Luis Garcia is a sustainable and effective way to identify and solve the needs at their elementary school.

We appreciate your support, for following our humanitarian efforts through this blog, and would very much like to give you a detailed in-person account of our trip at the Third Annual Hope for Honduras gala on April 24th. Please join us by signing up at www.ewb-wwu.org